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The Running Man
By 2017, the global economy has collapsed and U.S. society has become a totalitarian police state, censoring all cultural activity. The government pacifies the populace by broadcasting a number of game shows in which convicted criminals fight for their lives, including the gladiator-style The Running Man, hosted by the ruthless Damon Killian, where “runners” attempt to evade “stalkers” and certain death for a chance to be pardoned and set free.
Release : | 1987 |
Rating : | 6.6 |
Studio : | TriStar Pictures, Keith Barish Productions, TAFT Entertainment Pictures, |
Crew : | Assistant Art Director, Assistant Art Director, |
Cast : | Arnold Schwarzenegger Richard Dawson María Conchita Alonso Yaphet Kotto Jim Brown |
Genre : | Action Thriller Crime Science Fiction |
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Reviews
Sadly Over-hyped
Absolutely Fantastic
A lot of fun.
It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.
I have always loved this movie, but I'm not sure why. Firstly, this movie is ugly as hell. The entire movie is obviously shot on a sound stage, and poorly. The detail that went into set design is very lack lustre. Even as a kid, I knew this movie was ugly, and I always chalked it up to the fact it was 1987. But now that I'm older, and have taken the time to watch a lot of 80s movies, I now see that the late 80s was a very advanced time for movies. Even 1980's Blade Runner was beautifully detailed, and shot.The constant colour tone of this movie is so droning. If you could hear the colour, it would sound like a collection of low frequencies, eating away at your sanity. The lights and colours seem to overshadow the poor detail of the sets, so I wonder if thats why they went with bold lights. But at the same time as doing that, it masked whats actually happening in the movie. You can't see most of the battle scenes, because you have such an overbearing amount of red, or blue, or whatever colour "works" with which arena.I get the feeling this movie was severely edited for rating. There are certain parts where things seem to rush, and its not justified. One part in particular is the attempted rape scene, by Dynamo. Amber gets knocked on the ground, and all of a sudden Dynamo has his pants off. There are other parts in the movie like this, which make me wonder whether there is a harder rated directors cut somewhere.Story? What story? I know this movie has a "story", but its all just set up basically. In my opinion, this movie is a live action 80s video game. Because videogames of this time were exactly the same. They had stories, but they were all just for set up. The gameplay carried the games, and the stories were just for your imagination. It works for this movie though, somehow. The gameplay keeps you entertained, and the story doesn't matter. Something that I thought fell short, even in the gameplay side of it though, was the final boss. I think Arnie could've killed Killian a lot better.All in all, this movie is great. Maybe for nostalgic reasons, maybe because I like bad movies, but for some reason, I like it.
Plot; In the future, the totalitarian government uses a barbaric TV game show to help sedate and satiate the population.This is Arnold at the absolute zenith of his Arnoldness, and though this is far from his best film, perhaps none of his other works better typify The Age of Arnold that was that 15 year or so run from the early 80s through the mid 90s. The funny thing is, Arnold isn't even the best thing about The Running Man. That distinction belongs to Richard Dawson, not exactly playing against type as a verbose and charming gameshow host, who steals the movie right from under the hero. Paired with a tailor made premise, it delivers those 80s Arnold staples; Quips, kills, a kiss (courtesy of the lovely Maria Conchita Alonso) and a fade to black as a power rock anthem plays us out.
I heard this was going to be a great movie... It couldn't make a patch on the ass of Total Recall. The acting is dreadful most of the time, it seems to have been written by a 14 year old boy. Poor character design. None of the characters' decisions make sense, and most of the bad guys wind up killing themselves or are foiled by simply punching them once. It seems like everyone involved just wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible.The action usually ends quickly. The film lingers longer on Maria Alonso tied up with her pelvis pointed at the camera longer than any of the action scenes last, or that dance scene that goes on for about 6 minutes. All just so you can look at the dancer's skimpy clothes. This movie must be a self-parody, because for all it's big talk about consumerism, it caches in heavily on sex at least. As far as violence goes, it's very PG for an 80's action movie; it makes the suggestion of violence more often than not. I'm not sure what I was supposed to get out of this garbage. It's like someone ate Total Recall, a more generic version of the Hunger Games, and the Super Mario Bros. movie, then puked them out on Arnie's Hawaiian shirt.I will say, though, it was watchable. But it was like watching a trainwreck. I kept going "tell me they aren't going to do the obvious thing here", and sure enough they did every single time.And the movie doesn't even end. It's just like "well, we finished this challenge to the protagonists... movie's over!" I mean, obviously they would have been killed. But this movie is so non-self aware, they completely forgot what happens with the world empire that's apparently controlling everything. I put more thought into this review than the writers put into this whole movie...
Overall: This movie is a fun, one time watch maybe with some friends. Other than that I wouldn't watch it.Good: The concept is quite cool even if it isn't explained that well. Good performances all around, especially from the host of the show.Bad: Again the actual show isn't explained that well and the movie feels slow through it's opening act. I nearly fell asleep during the whole setup stage which just felt like setup and not in the flow of the movie. The so-called STALKERS which are the shows 'main attraction' are boring and could have been so much more creative. The movie is set in the future so it makes sense for weird and wacky stalkers that could make the movie more interesting. Schwartenenengers trademark one liners are present but overstay their welcome after the first few. This movie is also pretty old and its effects haven't aged that well but that is just nitpicking. Best Part: The fight scene versus Sub Zero was quite fun and more interesting than the others.6/10